On April 22, the Sun-News reported the district is projected to increase administrative salary costs and benefits by $2 million — or 60 percent — in the 2018-19 school year when compared to the school year 2015-16, the last full year before Superintendent Greg Ewing arrived.

The school district ostensibly replied to the Sun-News story via news release, and included district salaries for the 2015-16, 2016-17 and current 2017-18 school years.

LCPS claimed that by cutting some jobs, consolidating others and making sure all employees’ salaries and titles were appropriate with the work they were doing, the changes “had virtually no effect on staffing levels, but a moderate increase in salaries.

“An analysis conducted by the district’s Finance Department shows the number of employees at this level to be virtually flat since the 2015-16 fiscal year, while the combined salaries for those positions increased by about 13 percent,” the release said.

The schools' data, which district officials admit had some errors, differed from the Sun-News data because it included positions below assistant director, did not include benefits and did not project for the 2018-19 school year.

However, in discussing the data with the Sun-News, district officials presented a more accurate accounting of benefits and identified one position to be eliminated and one position to be added in 2018-19. Those two factors would affect the Sun-News' initial reporting.

The new projections show the district is on pace to increase administrative salary costs and benefits by $1.9 million — or 58.9 percent — in the 2018-19 school year when compared to the school year 2015-16.

Assistant director and above

The Sun-News obtained data focused solely on top-level LCPS administrators, or those at the assistant director level and above. This includes the positions of superintendent, deputy superintendents, chiefs, executive directors, directors, associate superintendents, assistant directors and controller.

In their response, LCPS said in the news release that they too "released the salaries of all LCPS employees holding positions of assistant director or higher for the past three years."

However, the LCPS 2015-16 school year data included a manager position, a principal position, three coordinator positions, three assistant controllers and a data analyst, all of which would not qualify as assistant directors and above.

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This happens again in the 2016-17 LCPS-provided data. There were 10 titles that do not qualify with the standard of assistant director and above, which included one manager, one principal, four coordinators and four assistant controllers.

And in the 2017-18 LCPS data there were two assistant controllers added when their positions do not qualify.

Damien Willis, director of communications, said the district did this to be more transparent in tracking promotions; for example with Todd Gregory, who went from coordinator in operations to a director over the three years.

LCPS Chief Financial Officer Ed Ellison said they included names of individuals who do not hold the title of assistant director and above because they still did the work of an assistant director and above. He said the district considers them in those positions even if they did not have the label.

Ellison did say he make a couple of mistakes by including Albert Vega and Jaime Calderon, who were a data analyst and a coordinator respectively, owning it to human error.

The Sun-News also found discrepancies in the FTE calculations.

What's an FTE?

FTE is a full-time equivalent, or an employee that works eight hours a day, five days a week. So, one FTE is equivalent to one employee working full time.

Willis said the FTE calculations are a June 30 snapshot, the last day of the fiscal year. Therefore they represent how many full-time employees LCPS had on that day.

However, in the 2015-16 year, Leslie Cervantes was given a 1.0 FTE when she left the district in August for a position at New Mexico State University. She was replaced by Timothy Hand and he should have a 0 FTE, Ellison said. Ellison said this was again a human error.

The Sun-News also found duplicate titles including Willie Manning and Alfred Puentes, as director of purchasing; Terrence Stuart and Charles Harris, as executive director of information technology; and Lorin Davis and Mathew Dynek, as assistant director of physical plant.

Ellison said they included the duplicates because on June 30, they were both full-time employees even though one was on their way in and the other was on their way out or someone was contracted.

When recalculating for positions of assistant director and above and incorrectly labeled FTEs, the Sun-News found 24.14 FTEs in the 2015-16 school year; 27.74 in 2016-17; and 34.6 in 2017-18.

In its news release, LCPS noted it wanted to make sure employees’ salaries and titles were appropriate, which would explain certain positions moving from a lower pay grade at a title below an assistant director to a higher pay grade and a title at assistant director and above.

LCPS said its data included positions of employees doing the work of assistant directors and above, even if their job titles didn't indicate it. If that were the case, the administrative salaries, sans benefits, will have jumped from 2.7 million in 2015-16 to a projected 3.6 million in 2018-19, a 29 percent increase.

The projected number does not take into account the employees who next year might not have the title of an assistant director or above, but might still be doing that work, as was the case in previous years.

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Greg Ewing, superintended at Las Cruces Public Schools, shakes hands with Damien Willis, who was introduced as the new head of communications for the school district during the Tuesday April 17, 2018 school board meeting at LCPS Central office.(Photo11: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

Projected year

In the April 22 article, the Sun-News compared the 2015-16 school year data with projected 2018-19 data.

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The projected data included promotions Ewing announced during a March 6 school board meeting, as well as those who are still with the district at this point in the school year and have not announced retirement. The data did not include Willis, who was announced as director of communications at a salary of $90,000 during an April 17 school board meeting. The data did include a chief communications officer at a salary of $116,000, a position the district announced would be eliminated in 2018-19.

The Sun-News' obtained data on projected salaries was based on job titles and known comparable salaries.

LCPS did not provide projected salaries for the 2018-19 school year. The district is currently finalizing a budget for the next school year. It is expected to have a town hall meeting in May where the public can provide input on the budget before the district presents it to the board for review and approval.

Where are the benefits?

The Sun-News reported cost of benefits for those in assistant director positions and above. LCPS did not.

The Sun-News calculated the benefits on an average of 45 percent of the employee’s salary, as the actual amount used varies between employee.

In response to a reporter's questions before the first article published, the district said the benefit calculation was incorrect, but refused to provide insight into how the benefits data can be more accurately determined.

When the Sun-News spoke with Ellison, he said 40 percent would be more accurate.

Ellison added that the district did not calculate these numbers because the district does not refer to it as benefits but "employee cost." Ellison said fringe benefits or benefits assumes it is added to the employees' salary. The district instead refers to it as cost to them for the employee. But a cost nonetheless.